Official Compares Fears Of London Transport Meltdown To Y2K

Fears of a transport meltdown during the Olympics have been "blown out of proportion" and will "prove to be unfounded, like the Millennium Bug," according to Arif Durrani of MARKETING MAGAZINE. On the heels of the Summer Games, scare stories about the impact the event’s additional three million daily journeys could have on the capital’s roads and underground train network "have reached fever pitch." However, Dir of Marketing and 2012 Communications for the London mayor Daniel Ritterband "has moved to reassure the city by remembering the media hype surrounding the Y2K glitch" that promised to send the world into turmoil at the turn of the 21st Century. Ritterband said: "I think there is something slightly Millennium Bug about all this. Where we’ll all wake up the next day and think, what was all that about?" Asked about the warnings issued throughout TfL’s ongoing marketing campaign, created by M&C Saatchi and now ratcheted up to include radio and TV as well as digital and outdoor activity, Ritterband conceded it was necessary. Ritterband said, "We want to get people concerned that if they have a really important doctors appointment then they need to leave an extra hour to get there, but that’s sensible planning" (MARKETINGMAGAZINE.co.uk, 7/18).